


Pressure

by RisuAlto



Series: Tai Lon's Story [7]
Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Beast of Winter DLC, Canon-Typical Violence, Exhaustion, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, POV Third Person Omniscient, Sleep Deprivation, Which is weird for me but it felt right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-12 17:43:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21480325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RisuAlto/pseuds/RisuAlto
Summary: Later, they would wonder at how she kept standing when the weight on her shoulders had already begun to crush her.
Relationships: Aloth Corfiser/The Watcher, Edér Teylecg & The Watcher, The Watcher & Xoti (Pillars of Eternity)
Series: Tai Lon's Story [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1548022
Kudos: 11





	Pressure

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rannadylin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rannadylin/gifts).

> This prompt was, "Worked themselves to exhaustion."
> 
> As a note, the timelines in this fic are a little screwy for the sake of Drama, so I think it’s technically a Universe Alteration (UA, like AU but less drastic) from Tai Lon’s actual quest progression. She actually did Beast of Winter really, really late.

Tai Lon was utterly sick and tired of all of this. Between the Vailians asking for help securing another adra vein, the RDC on her butt regarding slavers, the Huana sending her after an island that may or may not exist and may or may not be evil, and the Príncipi putting her on the defense from a revenge quest?

Not to mention everything her _actual friends_ needed—

The jobs were each little bubbles in her mind, but as she sought ways to pursue each of them, the details seemed to grow and grow, inflating the problem with more potential ways for it to blow up in their faces. Pressure was building in her head, and Tai Lon wasn’t sure how much more she could take before she exploded. 

She had to solve at least one. At _least_ give herself room to breathe. Just focus down a single quest and finish it, instead of worrying about the most efficient way to solve everything. Maybe she could start with the slavers.

(There was a knock at her door, but above the noise in her mind, Tai Lon didn’t notice it. Aloth, outside, assumed she was asleep.)

* * *

It took almost a week for anyone to notice, but for every job the crew of _The Defiant_ completed, two more seemed to pile up. Yet, even with Maia’s sharp eyes, Serafen’s supernatural awareness, and Aloth’s unparalleled intellect, none of them saw past the carefully funneled objectives that the crew was given, one at a time. Of course, it burned in the back of each companion’s mind when their personal objectives and the ship’s objective didn’t line up; but it was easy to forget the complications of having so many people’s goals, dreams, welfare, _survival_ wrapped up in the judgement of a single pale elf.

Later, they would wonder at how she kept standing when the weight on her shoulders had already begun to crush her.

* * *

When the letter from Harbinger’s Watch came, Serafen and Maia watched her fingers tremble as she pried open the seal. When she moved to tell Eld Engrim to change their course, Aloth and Tekēhu stopped bickering for long enough to notice how half her weight was leaned against the ship’s railing. Pallegina and Ydwin saw how her slow, careful walk up to the Harbinger’s Watch was meant to seem casual, strong, solid, but was in fact weighed back by some unseen phantom. Xoti and Edér noticed the shadows around her eyes as she was made to run back and forth across camp searching for the one who summoned them.

Separately, no one had the pieces.

It was in _almost_ the worst possible way that they came together.

When the rotted bones of the Messenger fell upon the camp, skeletal form obscuring the sky like a cat’s cradle descending to choke Eora, Tai Lon didn’t move. Even as her companions fell back (Aloth even tugging on her hand but losing his grip) and the Harbingers circled the creature in some kind of twisted reverence, Tai Lon simply stood there as though her boots had become part of the glacier.

If they could have seen her face, they’d have seen her open eyes staring at nothing, too clouded over with the haze of exhaustion. But they didn’t. The creature roared, and Tai Lon fell, crumpling atop the ice like her bones had turned to dust.

Aloth cried, “Watcher!”

Edér barked, “No!”

Ydwin hissed, “What _is that,_ what did it _do to her?_”

Xoti screamed, “Not on my fuckin’ watch!” Even as part of her murmured, _But it did happen on your watch. On all of yours._

The power of Gaun brought Tai Lon up to her feet enough to fell the creature with her party, but she collapsed against Edér’s chest the moment the adrenaline faded. As her eyes fluttered, her breath froze against the metal of his armor as she whispered, “Sorry, just—jus’ a second…”

Xoti lifted the Watcher from Edér’s arms, pouring healing spell after healing spell into a body with no more wounds. Yet, even as Aloth drew up beside them and threw his cloak over Tai Lon, she continued to shiver through deep, slow breaths. 

“Your magic’s no use, priestess,” Ydwin finally said, cutting Xoti off mid-incantation. Three sets of eyes turned to her. “She is not injured or poisoned, but exhausted, and there’s no magic to fix that without making her body suffer the side effects later.”

Aloth blinked slowly, turning back to brush some of Tai Lon’s hair away from her cheeks, revealing skin so pale that her snowy freckles were nearly eclipsed, save for the deep bruises wrinkling up under her eyes. “How did we miss this,” he muttered, feeling something squeeze at his chest in a way he hadn’t felt since—since Thaos.

“She never—she never said anything,” Xoti muttered, letting her hands fall, helpless and fidgeting, to her lap. “She was always standin’, talkin’, plannin’, and with a smile on her face.”

“She didn’t want us to know,” Edér said thinly. “But we should’a seen it anyway.”

Ydwin sighed, putting a hand on her hip. “You should have, yes.”

And her words stung, deeper and with more toxicity than most any blows they had endured, to see this near-stranger understand their (Watcher, Captain) friend in an instant when they had failed for—

—days?

—weeks? 

—months?

Only she could say, and _she_ was unconscious, body seeking desperately for a moment of rest.

When the party finally brought Tai Lon inside, back to where that High Harbinger had lauded her with yet more responsibility like it was a prize and not a death sentence. And in the wake of the other Harbingers flitting in and out, searching for their leader, the four of them sat like shields beside Tai Lon, deflecting demands for the “Duskspeaker’s” aid and wisdom like xaurip arrows.

“She can’t help you,” they said. “You’re supposed to have a leader already. You’re not her problem.”

As the influence of the gods and their suffocating designs became obvious, Xoti muttered, “If the gods try to make it her problem, then what do we do?”

Aloth ducked his head, hands curling into fists, and Iselmyr barked, “Tae Hel with th’ gods an’ their ninny spats!”

“I’d normally agree with you,” Edér said, “but she don’t usually get much of a choice. So, this time, we gotta help her. For real. Even when she’s gonna tell us not to.”

The wizard looked up, and his eyes burned so brightly that Edér was sure there was Hylspeak on his lips. But, “Yes,” said Aloth. “She might be holding up Eora, with all its kith and its gods tangled and failing, but it’s our job to hold her.”

“We screwed _that_ one up,” said Xoti. The words fell flat from her lips as she leaned against the freezing wooden walls.

“Well, we won’t _do it again_,” Aloth answered. He reached out slowly and folded one of his hands over Tai Lon’s beneath the blanket, squeezing like it would seal the promise between their palms.

Across the room, in the midst of sketching the dracolich, Ydwin quirked her eyebrows. _Very well._ Maybe there was hope for this Watcher, after all.


End file.
